Often, a call may go through several service provider networks in order to connect from a calling party to a called party. Each service provider's network may include several domains (or administrative boundaries). In Time Division Multiplexed (TDM) Networks, resource clearance using signaling messages is supported through serial resource clearance on a link-by-link basis. In the serial (or sequential) case, no node transmits a message until first obtaining resource clearance within its domain. Accordingly, the total time required to set up a call or session with a link-by-link signaling method is O(Σti) where ti represents the time it takes for resource clearance in the i-th link.
Priority services is the name given to preferred treatment of certain kinds of traffic (e.g., media/data and signaling) over other kinds of traffic in, for example, the context of civilian or defense communication networks. Priority in a public switched telephone network (PSTN) is performed on a switch by switch basis. Calls for priority users, such as government entities pass through switches while non-priority traffic is blocked.
Three kinds of priority services exist as present; namely, wireless priority service (WPS), Government emergency telecommunications services (GETS) by national communications systems (NCS) and multi-level precedents preemption (MLPP) by the United States Department of Defense.
GETS provides an ability to preempt calls at a lower priority than MLPP. GETS also provides for buffer-type queuing of a call such that the call will be the first call to pass when a necessary resource becomes available. Call control functionality includes the decision of choosing which call to allow and which call to preempt. Resource control and policy-based management functionality includes the decision of when to preempt a call or when to buffer-type queue a call.
Within the context of voice, video and other data communications (e.g., multimedia communications and the like) via packet based networks (e.g., Ethernet, etc.) resource clearance is handled on a sequential basis. Methods for preemption and priority handling of voice calls and multimedia services are also lacking in packet based networks.